Klik på en miniature for at gå til Google Books
Indlæser... Fools: Storiesaf Joan Silber
Indlæser...
Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog. Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog. To read: intrigued by the review in the NYTBR. What happens when principles are confronted with real life? How much are people willing to sacrifice for an ideology, and how much are they willing to sacrifice ideology for an easier life? Who are the fools, the people standing up for what they believe in no matter what, or the people who compromise their ideals to get along with family, with lovers, with society? Favourite stories: Fools and Two Opinions. Underwhelmed by Better, it could've been its title. Intrigued by the sympathetic depictions of terrible men, especially since this is a relatively recent book. As in her wonderful collection Ideas of Heaven, Joan Silber again creates a loosely connected 'ring of stories.' Characters from one tale drop into another decades later, sometimes as a mere mention, sometimes as an older but perhaps no wiser self. But what connects them all is a sense of loss, a search for meaning, and a link to the spirit of anarchy. And, of course, the lingering concern that one has been played for a fool. The title story, first in the collection, sets the tone and establishes the framework. It's the 1920s, and Vera, born and raised in India by missionary parents, and her husband Joe are living in a beach house with a group of fellow anarchists whose main goal is to save Sacco and Vanzetti from the death penalty. Despite their earnestness, hypocrisy abounds--and lives begin to change. No one ends up following the expected path. One of the story's main characters is Dorothy Day, who later became a founder of the Catholic Worker movement. In the course of "Fools," we learn that one of the wild young things, Betsy, left her husband Norman and ran off with an older speakeasy owner to run a hotel in Palm Beach. The second story, "The Hanging Fruit," focuses on their ne'er-do-well son, Rudy, who flees to Paris after several damaging escapades, only to be made a fool of again. One of his Parisian girlfriends reappears fifty years later in the collection's final story, "Buying and Selling," with an American friend, who happens to be one of Vera's daughters. Vera's older daughter, Louise, narrates "Two Opinions." Her father Joe was the only one of the original anarchists who stuck to his ideals; but the question is, was it really the right thing to do? And how has it affect her life? "Better" tells the story of Marcus, a newly-single gay man spending a weekend with friends and reminiscing about his former partner. He picks up an old book--which just happens to be a memoir written by Betsy's ex-husband. In "Going Too Far' we meet Gerard, the son of an employee at the Palm Beach hotel. He's searching for something, he's not quite sure what, but he recognizes a similar spirit in Adinah. It's only after they marry and become parents that he realizes that their spiritual destinies lie in different directions. I'm not sure this description gives a very good sense of Silber's loosely connected collection, so let me quote a blurb from the back cover by Jim Shepard that does it much better: "Fools is a wonderfully winning exploration of impetuousness in all of its appealing and appalling forms, and its deftly interconnected stories are devoted to those dreamers who act rashly and out of their better natures, who never quit asking the world, Can't you do better than that?--a question certain to become increasingly urgent as this twenty-first century progresses." Silber is a wonderfully perceptive writer who creates characters that are simultaneously unique and familiar. Although I still think Ideas of Heaven is her best collection, Fools is also highly recommended. ingen anmeldelser | tilføj en anmeldelse
HæderspriserDistinctions
This collection of interconnected stories begins with the anarchist daughter of missionaries in Manhattan who runs away to be an activist and ends with a wealthy young adulterer in Paris who is outsmarted by the object of his desire. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsIngenPopulære omslag
Google Books — Indlæser... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC-klassificeringVurderingGennemsnit:
Er det dig?Bliv LibraryThing-forfatter. |